This unexpectedly fascinating museum celebrates the ribbon-making industry, Comines’ economic mainstay since 1719. On weekends, passionate, knowledgeable museum staff set the antique machinery in motion and use cunningly devised model mechanisms to explain how they work. Suddenly ribbon looms, bootstrap twisters and zipper functionality all seem remarkably engrossing. French language skills certainly help.
Musée de la Rubanerie
Ypres
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
20.25 MILES
Dominating Tournai’s skyline are the five spires of its remarkable cathedral, which survived WWII bombs only for a freak 1999 tornado to compromise its…
9.75 MILES
Inaugurated in 1892, Lille's illustrious Fine Arts Museum claims France's second-largest collection after Paris' Musée du Louvre. Its cache of sublime…
7.79 MILES
No museum gives a more balanced yet moving and user-friendly introduction to WWI history. It’s a multisensory experience combining soundscapes, videos,…
20.18 MILES
Tournai’s gorgeous triangular main square is ringed with cafes in fine gable-fronted guildhouses merrily flying guild banners. Kids play in ‘dare-you’…
13.71 MILES
This is an unusually light-hearted WWI attraction. Reverend Philip ‘Tubby’ Clayton set up the Everyman’s Club here in 1915 to offer rest and recreation…
8.69 MILES
Probably the most-visited Salient site, this is the world’s biggest British Commonwealth war cemetery, with 11,956 graves. A huge semicircular wall…
28.34 MILES
Started in 1785, this tiny affair is Belgium’s last traditional steam-operated brewery. This wonderfully authentic family enterprise is best known for its…
Langemark Deutscher Soldatenfriedhof
11.25 MILES
The Salient's largest German WWI cemetery is smaller than Tyne Cot but arguably more memorable, amid oak trees and trios of squat, mossy crosses. Some 44…
Nearby Ypres attractions
2. Messines Ridge (New Zealand) Memorial
4.9 MILES
Located within the Messines Ridge British Cemetary is this tribute to New Zealand's war dead.
3. Sanctuary Wood (Hill 62) Museum
5.35 MILES
This gnome-fronted, surreally ordinary house displays a chaotic hotchpotch of WWI helmets, shoes, guns and harrowing photos, some in antiquated wooden…
5.95 MILES
This grand-scale high-adrenaline amusement park is the perfect place to give the kids a break from the histories of war.
6.37 MILES
In a quaint repurposed chapel on the Ypres–Menen road (N8), this small but characterful two-room museum is entered between assorted WWI sandbags, rusty…
7.13 MILES
This lake-fronted Normandy-chalet-style mansion and gardens are located in the centre of Zonnebeke village. The mansion was built in 1922 to replace a…
8. Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917
7.14 MILES
Within the grounds of Kasteelpark Zonnebeke you'll find this polished WWI museum charting local battle progressions with plenty of multilingual…